


walk in the broad skies

by naeildo



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 19:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21002594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naeildo/pseuds/naeildo
Summary: Chaeyoung writes a song.





	walk in the broad skies

**Author's Note:**

> [rainbow](https://twitter.com/KDHSOURCE/status/1176076575315550214) \- nayeon to chaeyoung :)

It's not that crises of confidence are an entirely new experience, but there's something particularly vicious about this one that has you cordially bidding the rest of them goodnight once you reach the dorm, stalking back to your room, and wrapping yourself in a cocoon of blankets. It's irrational, you know, the way you're reacting. The song just wasn't suitable for the album, and it didn't matter how much of your heart you poured into it or how much Frantz oppa thought that it sounded great. _It's just not the right time, Chaeyoung_, your creative director placated, and you get it, you _really do -_  
  
"Chaeng?" A voice says, startling you from your spiral. You blink, looking up to see a head peeking from behind the door, leaking fluorescent light into the room.  
  
"Unnie? Do you need something?"  
  
Nayeon shakes her head, and it bumps against the door frame - it startles a laugh out of you, but that makes her smile, too, teeth sticking out behind her lip. She nods in the general direction of your bed, chin tilting up.  
  
"Can I come in?"  
  
You're already starting to feel like a petulant child for being like this, so you nod, move on your butt so the lump that you've morphed into migrates to the side of the bed, making space for her to join you.  
  
She pads in, snuggling in beside you, and immediately puts an expectant hand out. "Can we share? I'm cold."  
  
While you're pulling one side of the blanket from under you, and as Nayeon is tucking it against her chest, you get a good look at her face under the dim light. Her eyebrows are still drawn on and there's white cream caked over half her face, making her look like a pre-show clown.  
  
"Did you get kicked out of the bathroom?"  
  
She looks down at the blanket tucked under her chin, finally satisfied, a small smile hung upon her face. "No, I just thought I should come over - but I had that thought while I was washing my face - _but_ you were more important at that time -"  
  
"Unnie," you can't help but laugh. You don't think you've ever known someone so easily distractible yet relentlessly loving. "I think you should go back and finish."  
  
"I think _you_ should tell me why you're sulking," she counters, leaning into your space, and whatever gloomy spell you'd been under breaks under how hilarious she looks, lips pulled into a grotesque frown.  
  
"It's nothing," you say, but there's no fight in it, and she hums, hand sneaking behind your back to press on your shoulder, pulling you closer.  
  
"Tell aunt agony what's wrong," she coos, and you mime throwing up, earning a smack on the arm. You can't help but laugh again, wrapping your own arms around her, leaning in to rest your head on the crook of her shoulder, warm and welcoming in the winter air that's climbed into your room in the time you were away.  
  
"Remember the song that I was writing? The one about the breakup."  
  
She nods, hums a little, hair brushing against your ear.  
  
"You're still not over her?" She asks, gently, hand carding through your hair. You've cut it even shorter for the season, and Nayeon was the first one to welcome you home from the studio, announcing your new hairdo to an unsuspecting Momo who was taking a nap on the couch.  
  
You shake your head - it was a short relationship, a girl you'd met while traveling, and the distance and responsibilities strained everything so impossibly that you never really stood a chance in retrospect. You don't think all of them know, to this day - Nayeon had just barged in on a day where another phone call turned into a fight, and you'd spilled everything carelessly into her shoulder, lightheaded and too drunk.  
  
"No - it's no good for this album," you say, and feel sillier when you hear it put into words. "They said they really like it, but it's just not the right vibe. So I just have to wait, right? Maybe I'm being really childish about this," you decide, halfway through. "Dahyun's songs have been rejected way more times, but she just keeps bouncing back -"  
  
"You're not," she says quietly, and there's a conviction in her voice that you've never managed to comprehend, but you let the assurance wrap around you anyway, sink deep into your tired bones, lean further into her embrace.  
  
"I just - want to create something that's _mine_." You let out a breath that fogs in the middle of the room. The heater's taking its own sweet time to start up, the way your creative projects are, evidently. It's not an illusion of grandeur - not really, when you've been so patient with the road to being an artist, whatever that can mean with the box you're in. "Something I can show the world."   
  
You expect her to say something - anything, but she lets you breathe quietly against her shoulder: in, out, in, out, before you feel her hand on your cheek, warm like summer. Everything feels softer in the afterglow.  
  
"I've seen it," she says, finally, gently, the pad of her thumb brushing across your cheek. "And in time everyone else will, too."  
  
Maybe you can believe in that.  
  
  
-  
  
  
You're watching her head loll against the side of the van before she wakes up after a particularly hard knock, and Jihyo is clutching at her arm and laughing so loud the whole van seems to shake. It's these moments that make sense when everything else fades into a blur, between the concerts and waking and sleeping, there Nayeon is, walking into your room with face masks as night turns into dusk, living and breathing beside you. Something real.  
  
  
The van's stopped at a gas station on the way back from a fansign in Namsan, and you're planted across from each other to share a _kimchi jjigae_. You dig in first while she fiddles with her phone - she's always looking at something or another these days; recently it's been an inexplicable string of trust fall formation videos, and you've given up on trying to get her to focus on the task at hand first. So you dig in first, eating in silence until you can see her straighten up in your periphery.  
  
"_How_ many times do I have to tell you not to eat with your mouth open, Son Chaeyoung," she scolds, but she sounds amused rather than stern, and you look up to see her peering fondly at you, phone camera aimed straight at your mouth.  
  
"Are you zooming in?"  
  
"No," she says, but her fingers are making particularly obvious motions on the screen.  
  
You open your mouth wider, leaning in so your nose presses against the back plating of her phone, and she laughs, shoving you away. _Yah, Son Chaeyoung, you little-_  
  
Her rice is still pristine and untouched.  
  
"Was it worth it going hungry to get the perfect shot?" You flutter your eyelashes in the way that you know always makes her laugh, and sure enough, it pulls a giggle from her. Jihyo looks over from the other table at the commotion, but quickly breaks into a small smile too. _We're fine_, you mouth, and she shakes her head, laughing. _Behave yourselves. _  
  
Because she is nothing if not a master at breaking up moments of mutual understanding, Nayeon reaches out to flick your forehead back with her fingers.

"Perfectly hideous," she retorts, clutching the phone protectively to her chest.  
  
"You love it," you say, laughing, leaning back against the cool plastic back of the chair. It's these moments, you think. Always these moments where things seem clearer and time doesn't move like it's racing against you.  
  
"Perfectly lovable," you hear a beat later, nearly inaudibly, when you've scooped up another mouthful of rice. She's looking down at her own bowl, fingers curled around the metal edges, a quiet smile painted across her face.  
  
  
-  
  
  
There was one time, before all of this, that the two of you had snuck out to buy drinks from the convenience store. You'd gotten an earful for it after - about the consequences, about the diets you were supposed to be on, but Nayeon had rolled out from her bunk and crashed into you on the way out, and you'd followed her lead, running through the hallway and out the door high on adrenaline and euphoria, fingers threaded between hers.  
  
You'd gotten a melon pop, her a strawberry swirl, with change left to spare. Those days, a 10,000 won bill felt like the entire world. Enough to buy a house if you just rounded the corner to the property hawker down the street.  
  
She'd led you down to the umbrellas outside the convenience store, feet propped up on the plastic chair on the other end. You left your feet on the ground. Nayeon was always that to you: larger than life, bigger and brighter than everyone else in the room. The months you'd spent together had softened those edges, but she was still - amidst everything, despite everything - unyieldingly herself.  
  
It felt like you were still on training wheels, learning how to be you.  
  
"What are you thinking about?" She'd asked, after a particularly long pause, and you looked up to see her handing you a wad of napkins. Your melon pop was dripping all over the table.  
  
"Shit - sorry," you'd said, wiping awkwardly at the mess you'd left while trying to eat an entire bar of ice cream in one bite with your other hand.  
  
"Let me." She took the wipes from your hands, setting her small plastic cup on the table.  
  
What were you thinking about? The shape of the umbrella you were under and the calories you weren't supposed to be consuming. What the future looked like, and whether you'd have to paint within the lines, look how you were supposed to look. Love how you were supposed to love. You couldn't even eat an ice pop without making a mess.  
  
"Is this really your dream?" You'd blurted out, in a long breath, gaze fluttering to the ground. It was _yours_. It had always been yours, as long as you could remember. But sometimes it felt too big and frightening, even if you thought you'd be brave enough to face it.  
  
Nayeon was staring thoughtfully at the wad of green-stained napkins in her hand when you looked back up.  
  
"If it weren't, I'd have stopped running a long time ago," she'd said, finally, and smiled a little when she looked back at you. "And I've never seen _you_ stop," she'd said, and her smile bloomed into something wider, settled beneath your ribs and hung there. Her eyes were bright with promise, and under the big umbrella, as rain started to drizzle down on your small shoulders, you believed her.  
  
So you ran, and ran, and ran, until you were out of breath. Until the scenery started to blur around you, until your lungs could barely take it anymore.  
  
But they were there, still, beside you, hands clasped in yours. So you kept running, feet pounding against the pavement, heartbeat in your palms.  
  
  
-  
  
  
Backstage, after the curtains have fallen for the last time, she finds you as you're streaming towards the waiting room to get your things. The staff here are really nice, but some of the lights and sound guys can't communicate with you without a translator, so you're stranded in the middle of sound check trying to disconnect your receiver from where it's wedged halfway up the back of your too-tight shirt.  
  
Out of the corner of your eye, Nayeon comes to a stop next to you, pulling at her own receiver, fedora in her other hand.  
  
"Did you hear that?" She yells into your ear, above the rising noise of the music blasting across the stadium. Your ears are still ringing.  
  
"Hear what?" You busy yourself with wrapping your in-ears around your fingers and bowing to the staff. You know what she's talking about - you were going to let it soak in later, slowly, while you were drifting off to sleep, but Nayeon has never run on anyone's schedule.  
  
"Chaeng, they were shouting so loud I thought I was going deaf," she says, circling to stand in front of you, the smile stretched so wide across her face that you think they might break the sides of her cheeks. Her hands clutch at your arms. "It was for _you_!"  
  
"I'm really thankful," you say, and find that you mean it, a strange, roaring feeling rising up in your chest.  
  
"Hey," her hands on your cheeks, anchoring you, and you breathe out, one long sound, when her fingers come away wet. "Dear girl, it's okay," she tries, and you can still make it out, the shape of her smile, bright and warm and all teeth, blurry through the tears.  
  
It's okay.  
  
  
-  
  
  
You get the text on a Saturday morning. There's a rainstorm outside, the sound of thunder crackling through the apartment when you sit up in your bed, and you wander out into the living room, phone in your hand as you scroll through the new messages.  
  
Today's schedule is a late one, 6pm, so manager's instructions are hair salon at 2pm, lunch by 1pm -  
  
"Did you see?" She says, waving her phone in front of you, too-loud and wide eyed for the morning.  
  
"What?" She's clad in her pajamas too, fresh-faced, the smile on her face so bright that you don't quite know what to say. "Month long break for us? Kookeu's checkup went well?"  
  
"Your song, Chaeng," she says, and it takes a while to register the words that are coming out of her mouth. "On our new album - some modifications, they said something about needing you back in the studio, but -"  
  
"Unnie," you say. Your breath still stinks. There's saliva caked on the corners of your mouth. She lifts you in the air, laughing, arms looped around your back.  
  
"Yours," she says, and there's something there, brighter than bright, fairer than fair. The sound of lightness in the air even as the rain beats down. "Yours," she shouts again, laughing. Thunder cracks to the beat of your feet hitting the ground.  
  
"No," you tell her, hands clammy as they reach for hers. A laugh bubbles up your throat. "_Ours_."

Ours.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at @[rainagaintmrw](https://twitter.com/rainagaintmrw) :)


End file.
